Her hands were beginning to shake with overcoming the anxiety it took to speak and do all of that, and she was feeling its dizzying effects.
She had watched Diego and Luther drag the man out, not concerned with being at all gentle, and with the dark looks they both shared on the way out she wondered absently if he'd arrive to the station with more blood on him than he already had.
Her shoulders slumped and she was exhausted, and when Five's hand connected with hers she turned towards him and buried her face into the crook of his neck, closing her eyes in the hopes she wouldn't cry again. She already had a headache from it. His arms gently wrapped around her and when she buried her face in closer he got the hint and held her tighter.
Odd, she thought. It felt like she could breathe easier now.
Five must have mouthed something to Vanya over her shoudler because she went to give them some time alone together. On the way, she gently placed a hand on Violet's shoulder which at first made her tense up from not expecting it, but it was gentle and warm and she closed her eyes tighter, a lump forming in her throat.
Vanya quietly went to sit upstairs.
Five just held her as she shook against him.
She held on tighter as he blinked them both upstairs unto another room, and refused to let go.
Five, for once, could find nothing playful to say about it for fear he would scare her away and never receive the rare, light touch of hers again.
Of all the things he had invisible doing to the people who had hurt her, he didn't even come to the idea that she might have taken it into her own hands.
But oddly this rage suited her.
And he didn't care for the blood she stained his clothes with, just like he wouldn't question it if she sliced him open, if only she would be the one holding the knife.
They had no idea of the time it took them to prise themselves apart, nor of the thoughts going through either of their heads at the time.
But the moment he opened his mouth to talk about it Violet couldn't help but flicker, fade away and attempt to hide herself away from him, a sudden shame burning across her skin so blaring she believed he'd be able to see it plain as day.
He'd stared after her longingly, words left unsaid, and had respected her need to be alone in that moment.
Violet found herself sulking in the bathroom with a new found energy in her veins, adrenaline still pumping through her.
She glanced down solemnly at her tattered jumper and ran her fingers along the thread. It was borderline unable to be salvaged and it made her sad, and it was hard to let go of. The bloodstains she would have been able to scrub out eventually over time so that the blue shon through once again but the tear was massive. It hung off her entire shoudler and halfway down her front.
She didn't even think Grace could save it with her sewing skills. That thought alone of her mother figure made her even sadder.
She dwells on it for a while, cleans the blood off of her, and returns in a top with spaghetti straps. Her hair is brushed and left over her shoulders. It gets in the way sometimes, but it hid her from view. Her new scars were on show for once, and for once more, she didnt give a shit.
She had loads on her upper arms, pale pink and some shiny white. The angrier one was the one on the left of her chest over her heart, and the other an inch or so below it in the centre of her chest.
She peered around the doorway curiously, her hair falling infront of her shoulders and tickling her cheek.
Five's eyes immediately met hers across the room and there was a silent question in them. She kept his gaze for a second before she glanced at all her siblings sitting around the room, drinking. The remnants of the coffee table were between them all on the floor in shattered pieces which was why everyone was holding their drinks.
"Diego's been stalking Lee Harvey Oswald!"
She blinked, walking out and looking awkwardly around the room, Five stood at the edge of the couches with Diego. Allison and Klaus were there too, much to her surprise. Klauses hair looked good long, she thought, and Allison looked stunning as ever.
She shifted uncomfortably. They were all too wrapped up in passing the blame to someone else.
"And you've been working for Jack Ruby!" He snapped back.
Hearing this felt a bit surreal. She was glad they'd had better times in this decade than she had.
"I don't want to point any fingers... but Allison's been very involved in local politics." Klaus piped up.
"Yeah?" She turned to face him, raising an eyebrow. "Well Klaus started a cult!"
Their voices began overlapping, shouting to point blame at eachother like usual.
Vanya quietly raised her hand. "I'm just a nanny on a farm... I dont have anything to do with all of that."
"Well, maybe you do and we just don't know it yet," Allison pointed out, gesturing her glass at the woman. "Not to mention Violet's now the face of a nationwide cold case."
Five caught her eyes across the room the moment it was said, and even Allison grimaced at how it came out.
Luther cleared his throat and all eyes shot to Violet, and they all looked uncomfortable realising she'd been there to hear that.
"Nice one, sis." Klaus commented, tapping his knees.
"Shit, im sorry, I didnt mean it like that..." Allison put a hand to her mouth, grimacing.
Her eyes met with Fives and subtly, he shook his head. She crossed her arms and gripped them tightly, going to walk through the middle of them - stepping over the smashed coffee table that crunched under her shoes. Those who needed to quickly tucked their legs in to get out of her way.
She pointedly avoided looking at the blood stained shards on the rug below it, not wanting to have to relive the feeling of her airways crackling as she tried to gasp a breath into her lungs.
She sat herself calmly on the floor, crossing her legs and sitting back against the couch, next to Klauses legs with a viable gap between them and her shoudler. Klaus was a fidgety person, shed learnt her lesson before when he'd once kneed her in the side of the head during a very animated explanation of his 'getting' with a set of twins at the club the night before.
"I really didn't mean it like it was your fault, Violet," she continued, holding her drink tighter. "It just came out wrong."
Violet was dying for this line of conversation to end, tightening her grip on her own arms, able to feel their not so subtle glances at her scars. The marks from many a fight and a dozen near misses.
Violet wasn't going to even respond to that.
It wasn't like she wanted her face all over the news for being assaulted and becoming a missing person. And her apology meant nothing, because Allison wouldn't have felt the need to apologise if she hadn't have walked into the room as she said it. If she knew she didn't hear the comment she wouldn't feel so guilty.
The silence in the room was tense and nothing less than awkward, and she wanted to shy away from their roaming gazes, but she forced herself to stay in her regular state.
Five shifted to stand a little closer to where she was sat and she let her shoulders relax a little.
Maybe Allison expected her to accept her apology, maybe they expected her to snap or actually respond. But she didnt.
Of course she didnt. She just glared coldly down at her arms as the previous conversation was picked up, only less heated this time.
"Listen," Diego started confidently, crossing his arms. "Everything in our news lives is somehow connected to Kennedy, that can't be a coincidence. Luther works for Jack Ruby, Allison is protesting the government, dad is on the grassy gnoll, sorry Vi but you were the face of the states biggest cold case before we dropped that shit bag to the police," he sent her a quick apologetic look which she appreciated, but what she appreciated more was how his tone turned softer and quieter after he mentioned her name.
Still, she looked down and picked at the skin around her nails, mind wandering where she didn't want it to go. Her body flared with dull aches and the boy next to her subtly shifted closer.
"Klaus is... doing something weird and percy and probably related. We all had to have been sent here for one specific reason," he continued. "Saving John Fitzgerald Kennedy."
Everyone simultaneously started speaking over eachother, voices raising to be heard as they all argued.
Violet shrunk in on herself, hands going up to cover her ears. It did little to keep the cacaphonous sound at bay and she considered actually leaving the room to let them all hash it out when she felt the back of Five's hand brush against her own.
She glanced up at him with a tired, troubled expression and his expression wilted as he stared back at her.
Everyone was arguing like idiots and here they were apparently the only two who gave a shit that they had to stop the world ending and save about eight billion lives from a horrible death - including themselves - and it was a bitter feeling that they both shared.
The others had made lives for themselves.
Violet had nearly had hers taken from her and Five hadn't been here long enough to even think about anything other than saving his family.
This wasn't some joke.
The aches in her body were getting worse with her growing stress and Five's eyebrows were pinched, a haunted look in his eyes. His knuckles stayed brushed against the back of her own and her hands pressed tighter over her ears as her siblings arguing turned to shouting.
She couldn't deal with this anymore.
"Everyone SHUT UP!" She suddenly yelled, sharp voice cutting through all of theirs and shocking them into silence.
All eyes were on her as she took her hands away.
A strange feeling fluttered as he regarded how she had put herself out of her comfort zone to help.
"Guys you all die." He said quietly, glancing around at each of them. All eyes went from Violet to him now.
She looked down with dull eyes, the sound of his voice wavering making her feel worse. And here he was, trying to comfort her.
She listened to Five try to convince them that they needed to speak to their dad, a dead feeling sitting hollow in her chest like a bird carcass in a cage. The thought alone of seeing Sir Reginald Hargreeves made bad memories resurface, and the scars on her fingers beginning to burn.
She wondered if he knew one day he'd force one of his children to hold their hand over a naked flame until she passed out from the pain, just to test her level of healing while pain receptors were constantly being stimulated.
Would he still deduct points from her training because she had cried?
She wondered if he would so quickly gift his child a pet rabbit, have her bond and raise it for two weeks, only to kill it right in front of her to see if she could heal different injuries on animals like she could humans.
Did he even remember the name she had given it?
Then, she asked herself, did she? Or had she blocked that part out to spare herself some extra pain?
She wondered, running her fingertips along the backs of her hands, if he would bat an eye at the thought of starving one of his children for months until she barely had the energy to heal herself again, let alone stand, just to test the limits of her power before she was forced back into the world of the living to repeat the trials and the tests and the experiments all over again.
Violet wondered if the Reginald in this timeline would find that at all disturbing of himself.
"I was there, I saw it. I want to forget it but I can't." She tucked her face against her arm at the sound of Five's somber voice cracking. "I saw Russian nukes vaporise the world with all of you in it - in a war that never happened until we brought it here. And Hazel gave his life to save us so you all need to just shut up and listen to me."
Now they were all listening.
"I don't know if the things we've experienced here are connected. I don't know if there's a reason for everything."
She sure hoped what she had gone through wasnt planned by fate, meant to happen. It was a bitter thought that brought a bad taste to her mouth.
"But dad will. We need to talk to him before everyone and everything we all know is dead." He stated firmly, finally.
Violet could sense the tension in the room, coming from one direction in particular, and when Luther stood abruptly she flinched. "Okay. I'm out."
Her mouth dropped open as she stared at Luther who brushed himself off and stepped past the couches to leave.
Five fixed him with an incredulous stare. "Did you even hear me, Luther?"
"Yeah, I did. I heard a fifty six year old man who still wants his daddy to come and fix everything."
They watched Violet slowly pull herself to a stand, a deep frown on her face as she stared between Five and Luther who stood head to head at the top of the stairs.
"Well, you can count me out. It's time we all grew the hell up." Luther said finally.
Oh, the sweet irony, she could have almost laughed if the situation weren't so dire.
A few of her siblings went to call out for him to stop him leaving, but it was Five who blinked in front of the man, cutting him off at the stairs and grabbing his arm in warning. "No one leaves until we figure this out."
Violet watched Luther nod and grab Five by the front of his jacket, lifting him up and proceeding to throw him over the railing. Her heart leapt into her throat and she shot forwards, hands grasping the railing to see him blink away in time before he hit the floor.
"Luther!" Allison called out, astonished by his behaviour.
Luther ignored everyone and continued down the stairs, but to everyone's surprise, it was Violet who stopped him.
And by a hand grabbing the sleeve of his shirt, no less.
When he turned, expecting a fight, the last person he expected to see holding him in place was little Violet, eyes a dark, fierce shade that made him hesitate. She pointedly and calmly moved her eyes from his face to lean over the edge and stare down at the floor, all the way below them, then back at him.
"If Five couldn't blink away, that would have been at least, what," she spoke so stoically it shocked the room into dead silence, all of them straining to hear her deathly quiet tone. "A broken bone? Two?"
Luther furrowed his eyebrows, not quite following, staring down at her hand latched onto his arm.
Violet wasn't shaking.
Her voice held stronger than she felt.
"I can emulate that." She said quieter, leaning in ever so slightly, head tilting to the side.
He gave a nervous chuckle, glancing expectantly down at her hold. "What are you trying to say, exactly?"
Violet's lips twitched upwards on one side and she released him, stepping back and turning away as though she hadn't just overstepped every boundary the Violet they knew had ever set all her life.
"Nothing." She said blankly, something hidden in her false light tone.
With all eyes on her, watching the spectacle, they witnessed Violet stomp nonchalantly over the glass and blood stains, plucking Klauses drink from his hand and continuing on into the kitchen.
"Uh, okay-" klaus stared after her like he was seeing an actual ghost.
The girl didn't turn around to acknowledge any of them and slid the door behind her closed, all of the fizzing tension in her body releasing now she was alone.
She glanced down at the glass in her hand and, while wondering if she should go after Five or not, simply downed the alcohol with dull eyes.
She was going to find Five, she decided. She didn't know if she could mingle with the others without starting a fight anymore, surprised in herself and this new need to be heard all of a sudden.
She was done with their shit.
She slammed the glass down on the counter and didn't bother with a jacket, leaving the apartment.